There's Bad Then There's Dragons
by frostykitten
Summary: There's bad, like telling your parents that you've been secretly dating the son of their enemy, a boy they believe is horrible. And then there's worse, like being kidnapped by a dragon in the middle of it. Oneshot.


**There's Bad Then There's Dragons  
**

**A/N: Hello readers! I wasn't going to post this today, but my sister's Furby is moving on its own without making sound, so I decided to edit this instead of sleeping because Furby is clearly just waiting for me to let my guard down. *Sigh* It's 5am and I've been up all night, so forgive any mistakes.**

**I've been busy finishing the sequel to CCK as well as the one for Deceptive Natures. I've finished the DN sequel and am working on the second to last chapter of the CCK sequel. Keep an eye out for those.**

**This is another one of my story doodles that got out of hand. I had a picture of the first scene in my head and it escalated from there. I tried something a little different this time perspective-wise. I kind of liked the way it turned out. I hope you guys do as well!**

**~Frosty**

**Scorpius**

Scorpius never liked the summer, too much sun for his delicate skin. This summer in particular was that little bit extra unpleasant, mainly because it meant that Rose was no longer a few staircases away in the Gryffindor common room. No, now he had to retrieve her from her parents' house.

The dwelling itself wasn't the issue, it was her parents. One little infraction turning the pompous Albus Potter into a squealing pig and the world seemed to be against him – or at least the extended Weasley family. Thank goodness that Rose knew what a wanker her cousin could be and had decided to give Scorpius the benefit of the doubt.

He raised his hand to knock, only to pause at a shout from inside. Her parents couldn't know he was there yet, so the raised voices couldn't be directed at him. This being the case, Scorpius felt comfortable staying to listen.

"Ronald Weasley, tell me you didn't forbid our daughter from going!"

Scorpius could imagine the tall man cowering under the wrath of his wife. Rose had a lot of her mother in her and Scorpius almost sympathised with the man. Both mother and daughter were downright fierce when angered.

"You know I bloody well did! We can't let her carry on with the Malfoy boy. She's going to end up pregnant and in some kind of brainwashing Death Eater camp!"

"You know forbidding Rose from dating him is only going to send her running right into his arms."

Now that, Scorpius could vouch for. Rose Weasley did not take well to being told what to do. It was practically guaranteed that she'd do the opposite of what she was ordered to. If the trait didn't work in his advantage so frequently, Scorpius would have sympathised with her parents for raising such a hard-headed child. But then, from the sounds of it, both of her parents were exceedingly hard-headed themselves.

"He's probably got her under some kind of spell. We have to find her and get her to the hospital before that slimy little prick finds her."

The door whipped open and Scorpius thought his cover was blown and her parents were going to kill him, but it was just Hugo. Granted, Hugo looked panicked, but Scorpius assumed that this was his normal state when his parents were trying to shout the house down. No reason to be alarmed.

"Get in there," Hugo hissed. "Rose ran off in a huff a while ago and no one's seen her since. I thought she was with you, but clearly not."

The ginger sprout had a point. Forcing his face into a mask of calm that he certainly didn't feel, Scorpius strode into the room. His shoulders were back and his gait was confident despite the fact that he was braced to be hexed at any moment.

Rose's parents were so busy glaring at each other that they didn't notice him at first.

"The slimy little prick hasn't seen your daughter," Scorpius announced. It took all of his willpower to stop himself from flinching under their twin glares. No wonder Rose could stand nose-to-nose with him while he gave her his fiercest glare. She'd been conditioning for it since she was a toddler. "She was supposed to tell you that we were dating and then I was going to come over to reassure the lot of you that I'm not trying to corrupt her and all the other nonsense you're sure to assume."

For a few beats, Scorpius was sure that he was going to be hexed. Hugo seemed to think the same thing, since he slunk from the room and peeked out from behind a door. The fourth year was hiding in a coat closet. Scorpius would have made fun of him for it, but he dearly wished that he was in there right beside the ginger sprout.

It remained silent, so Scorpius opened his mouth once more, something that Rose had repeatedly assured him would get him killed one day. "I like to think that my girlfriend wouldn't willingly leave me to my potential death at the hands of her parents, which leads me to believe that she's either been sidetracked or something's wrong. Now, I have no idea where she is and neither do the two of you, so I suggest that instead of duelling to the death, we find her."

Mr. Weasley turned such a startling shade of red that Scorpius was worried that he was going to have a stroke. Rose would never forgive him if he inadvertently killed her father. New topic. What he needed was something for Mr. Weasley to focus on besides wrapping his fingers around Scorpius' neck and squeezing the life out of him.

"What _exactly _was it that you forbid Rose from doing?" Maybe the wording would hint at where Rose headed.

"'You're forbidden from ever seeing that boy again. You're grounded for the rest of the summer and we're sending you to your mother's parents so he can't find you.' That's what you said," Hugo called, emerging from the closet now that his parents had calmed slightly. The ginger sprout was definitely a fair-weather friend, but at the moment, Scorpius needed all the allies he could get.

"That should have sent her running to my house," Scorpius said with a frown. Before, he'd merely been concerned about no one knowing Rose's exact location, now he was starting to worry that she really was lost somewhere.

"She wouldn't do that," Mr. Weasley snapped.

Of course she would. She had in the past and would most likely do it again in the future. Every time Rose was upset with her parents and sent to her room, she hopped on her racing broom and made the hour-long trip to Scorpius' bedroom window.

Hugo rolled his eyes at his dad. "She would."

"I'll go back to the Manor and check to see if she's been there," Scorpius said doubtfully. He'd been home only seconds before knocking on their door, having just received his Apparition license and wanting to use the new skill to its fullest. Still, there was no point getting worked up over her disappearance if he was only going to find her asleep in his bed. It was worth checking.

**Rose **

Looking around the rough stone walls of her prison, Rose reflected on all of the people who were angry with her at this point. Her parents for revealing that she was dating someone they thought to be a bad egg, Scorpius for leaving him alone to face her parents, and probably even Hugo for having to deal with their parents _and _an irate Scorpius.

She hadn't meantto leave Scorpius to face them alone. In fact, she'd been on her way to his house to warn him about how angry they were, to suggest that maybe they wait a little while for them to cool down before they met him officially. She knew from experience that Scorpius and his big mouth only exacerbated problems such as this, especially when he was on edge as well.

Rose had learned an important lesson on her way to Malfoy Manor: dragons, despite their size, can fly without making a sound. At least, the type of dragon that snatched her and dragged her back to its den had flown without making enough sound for her to hear it over the rushing wind. Maybe that wasn't her lesson at all. "Try not to fly near dragons" or "dragons will not hesitate to abduct and possibly consume you" applied as well. Her little trip was proving to provide a bounty of valuable lessons.

It all happened so fast that there had been no way for her to prevent what happened. Her broom was knocked out from under her when it grabbed her. Rose watched as it fell to the ground and smashed to pieces on a rocky outcropping. She screamed, but the dragon just shook her a little, probably because the high-pitched sound hurt its ears, so Rose stopped.

Panicked, Rose clutched at the razor-sharp claws that held her gently. If it released her, she'd fall to her death, but if she stayed with the dragon, she would only _probably _be killed. She really wished she hadn't left in such a huff, that she'd had the forethought to grab her wand. Rose wasn't yet seventeen, so she didn't make a habit of carrying her wand around during the summer.

The dragon carried her until she was freezing from being in the air so long, and her fingers were stiff from clutching onto the dragon's claws. She was sure that it was going to eat her, but it had only dropped her into the cave she now occupied and flown off again.

There was a straight drop from the opening of the cave. Rose was six stories up and there were no handholds. That exit was not an option. Hoping for some sort of back exit, Rose had only found a few rocks that looked worryingly like eggs.

Was she just supposed to wait in the cave until the hatchlings emerged and then consumed her as their first meal? She really hoped not.

Upon further inspection, she found that the eggs were actually egg shells. Rose wasn't sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing. It was possible that the dragon had flown off to get her hatchlings so that they could come consume her.

Unbidden, a little squeak of distress escaped her when she saw a shadow pass over the mouth of the cave. The dragon was returning.

**Scorpius**

After Apparating back to his house and finding no Rose, Scorpius flew his broom the route he knew Rose travelled to visit him. He found the pieces of her broom shattered on rocks, but there was no sign of Rose anywhere.

Not wanting to forget the place where he'd found the broom shards, Scorpius sent a Patronus to her parents. Within an hour, a herd of Weasleys and a team of Aurors had descended upon him. They were annoying, but there was no arguing their promptness when one of their own needed them.

"Are we sure the Malfoy boy didn't kidnap her?" Scorpius heard Rose's father asking various Aurors over the course of their investigation.

"Dad, for the last time, Scorpius wouldn't do anything to hurt Rose!" Hugo yelled. The ginger sprout had side-along Apparated with his mother. Scorpius suspected that Hugo had insisted on accompanying his parents more out of concern that they were going to place the blame for her disappearance on Scorpius than out of worry for his sister. Rose must have bribed him with something good for him to brave side-along Apparation just to make sure that Scorpius didn't get arrested.

There was no blood anywhere on the scene, so everyone was optimistic that she wasn't dead. This wasn't as comforting as Scorpius was sure the Auror who said this to him seemed to think.

"You!" Ron shouted, grabbing Scorpius by the back of the neck and dragging him forward a step so that he could better intimidate the young man. "How did you know the broom was going to be here? You've arranged her abduction, haven't you? _Where is my little girl?"_

Thankfully, Hermione came up being her husband and extracted Scorpius from his hold. She was the more dangerous of the pair, the one who wasn't letting her anger rule her and was instead connecting dots in her mind.

"This isn't the first time Rose has flown her broom to meet you, is it, Scorpius?"

How in the world was he supposed to answer that? If he said yes, they'd hate him more, but if he said no, they would think that he'd somehow arranged to have Rose kidnapped, or that he'd helped her run away from home.

His silence and momentarily guarded expression was enough for them to come to their own conclusions.

"You defiled my daughter!" Ron shouted, launching himself at Scorpius. He got in one punch to the unsuspecting Scorpius' eye before his wife stepped in and pulled them apart.

"Ronald! You can't go around making wild accusations and punching teenagers for no reason!"

Scorpius seconded that. He gently prodded at his aching eye to make sure nothing was broken. For an old guy, Rose's dad certainly packed quite a punch. Even worse, Scorpius hadn't even had the pleasure of actually defiling Rose. When she came to visit him, she was usually so tired and cold from the long broom ride that she just crawled into bed beside him and put her freezing cold feet against his legs while she snuggled there for warmth.

He couldn't exactly tell her parents this though; somehow Scorpius suspected that they wouldn't really be pleased to know that Rose sometimes slept in his bed, even if that was all that happened.

"Fine," Ron snapped, shaking off his wife's hands, "The boy will admit that he's defiled her and _then _I can punch him."

"You're not punching him at all." She leaned closer to look into Scorpius' eyes. Hers were a different colour than Rose's, but they had the exact same way of seeing right through him. "I don't think Rose was visiting him to fool around. Was she, Scorpius?"

Their conversation had drawn the attention of a few Aurors as well as some nosy Weasleys. Scorpius tilted his head to the side, indicating that he wanted to talk away from prying ears.

"She'll never tell you, but she really hates it when she fights with the two of you. Mostly, she just cries herself to sleep and steals my blankets."

Wrong wording. Scorpius could tell this immediately by the way Rose's dad turned puce and tried to punch him again. This time Scorpius was ready for it and dodged. He stayed out of reach while Mrs. Weasley got her husband calmed once more.

Rose was going to kill him for telling them that, but Scorpius was pretty sure she'd be kinder about his murder than her parents would be, her father especially.

"Hermione, did you not hear him? He's _slept _with our daughter."

"Only in the most literal sense of the word," Scorpius insisted.

Mrs. Weasley turned to glare at him as her husband got worked up all over again. He just couldn't win with them.

Worried about his girlfriend and tired of being accused of kidnapping her or worse, Scorpius hopped on his broom and flew off. He headed home, where he knew he had a detailed map of the countryside. If he developed a grid pattern and searched throughout the night, he could cover a good distance before nightfall.

**Rose**

She pressed herself against the back of the cave, hoping to prolong her life for a few extra seconds before the dragon ate her like the crunchy treat she was. The dragon, not quite as big as it had seemed when it was clutching her high above the ground, approached her with its head down, making a chirping sound in the back of its throat.

It seemed like the creature was telling her not to be afraid. Clearly it was trying to lull her into a false sense of security. Maybe people were more tender when they weren't all tense and afraid.

The floor was bare of even the tiniest pebbles, so Rose was without any sort of weapon. She tried to fuse with the wall and turned her head away so she didn't have to watch. She was hoping that it finished her off quickly. It would be really unpleasant if it started with her legs and just left her as a bleeding torso.

Continuing to chirp at her, the dragon bumped her in the stomach with its head using almost enough force to knock the wind out of her. This dragon was not good at being gentle and it was obvious that its mother had never stopped it from playing with its food.

Rose had never paid much attention in Care of Magical creatures, mostly because it was one of the few classes that the Gryffindors shared with Slytherins and she and Scorpius spent most of the class making eyes at each other over tubs of Flobberworms. This gap in her education was unfortunate, because she had very little information on dragons. It was a Welsh Green and a little far from its native Wales, but that was the extent of her knowledge. For all she knew, this was perfectly normal behaviour for the things.

Rose got a good look into the dragon's reptilian eyes when it poked at her some more with its snout. Its body was that of a predator, but its eyes just seemed sad. She glanced over at the broken eggshells.

"Good dragon?" she squeaked, hesitantly petting its head. It rubbed against her hand, making a rumbling sound as its eyes half closed in pleasure. "You're just lonely, aren't you?"

The dragon rubbed against her a lot like her mum's old cat, Crookshanks, did when he wanted to be fed. Except this version of Crookshanks was 20 feet long and could breathe fire. Normally, she would feed Crookshanks to get him to stop the rubbing, but she wasn't willing to give up an arm or something larger to make the dragon stop.

Maybe just talking to it? She wondered how smart dragons were.

Rose patted its head, making sure to give the teeth a very wide berth. "Yes, you're a nice dragon and everything, but I think my parents may be murdering my boyfriend as we speak. I actually prefer him in one piece – I'd like to point out now that humans are _always _best when alive and in one piece – so if you don't mind, I think we should get out of here."

The dragon pulled back her head and looked Rose up and down. For the briefest moment, Rose thought it had understood her, but then it whipped around, narrowly missing her with its tail, and then launched itself back out of the cave.

Sliding down the wall, Rose settled against the cold stone, trying to arrange her cloak around her in a way that kept her warm. She had a feeling that she was going to be in the cave for a while.

**Scorpius**

When Scorpius was so exhausted that he was in danger of falling from his broom, he gave up his search for Rose. He'd been out all night and a good portion of the morning searching for her. Nothing. It was as if Rose had been snatched from her broom and carried off.

"If there's one thing I've learned about Weasley's, it's that they're nearly impossible to kill," his dad said over the breakfast that his mother had insisted upon. Apparently, Scorpius would wither away and perish if he collapsed into his bed without eating something first.

Astoria glared at her husband. "Not helping, Draco."

"I'm just saying that her parents survived a whole army of Death Eaters dead set on killing them and came out without any serious injury. The lot of them are like cockroaches, nearly impossible to kill. Wherever she is, Rose is probably shouting someone's ear off. They'll have her back here by morning, begging us to keep her."

Scorpius shovelled a few quick bites into his mouth, just enough to appease his mother. "May I be excused?" he muttered, not waiting for an answer. He was going to take a quick nap and then go out looking for Rose once more.

**Rose**

She screeched and dove out of the way as the dragon dropped a dead but still bleeding goat on the rock in front of her.

"I'm really not hungry, thanks. You go ahead though, I don't want you feeling peckish in the middle of the night and taking off my leg."

The dragon did not seem pleased with this response, but Rose wasn't about to take a bite of raw goat just to placate it. She didn't even like goats when they were properly cooked, much less all raw and bloody.

Thankfully, the dragon didn't insist that she eat the goat. It instead ate the entire thing in only a few chomps and then curled up in a corner of the cave to sleep.

Rose really wanted to do the same, but there was something about a large, dangerous, carnivorous creature only metres away from her that just wasn't conducive to a good night's sleep.

Creeping quietly, she went back to the entrance of the cave and peeked over the edge, hoping that somehow a new escape had been revealed since she'd last checked.

Nope, still a huge drop down to the ground. It wasn't even mud or sand at the bottom, something soft that carried a slim chance of cushioning her fall, maybe keeping her alive once she hit. It was pointy rocks and certain death waiting for her down there.

Instead of just staring at the ground, Rose actually risked leaning out of the cave a little and taking a look at the top of the entrance to see if there were any handholds up there. It would be an incredibly awkward angle to climb, but it was clear that a rescue was going to take a while – if anyone would be able to find her at all.

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a figure on a broomstick, but it was gone by the time she'd turned her head. Rose didn't want to scream in case she was wrong. No sense waking the dragon for such a very slim possibility of rescue. She tried flailing her arms, but only succeeded in making herself feel like an idiot.

There were no handholds anywhere. It was like the dragon had burrowed a hole in a single sheet of rock that went all the way down to the ground.

It was hopeless.

Unless...

Rose edged her way over to the dragon. She poked it a few times, her heart pounding as she waited for it to wake up and remove one of her limbs with its very pointy teeth. She'd seen those teeth in action not so long ago and was _not _eager to witness it on herself. Rose had a feeling that the goat was tougher than she was. The dragon could probably swallow her in three bites.

She reminded herself that she could wait to see if the dragon wanted to eat her tomorrow, or she could actively take part in her own rescue. There was a very real chance that waiting for someone to find her would kill her.

Rose shut her eyes tightly for a moment, gathering herself and praying before she put her plan into action.

The dragon was a lot easier to climb than the rock face would have been. It didn't even shift as Rose used its leg to boost herself up on to its back. She wedged herself between its wings. If she stayed there unnoticed until the dragon flew out of the cave, maybe she could get to the ground. At least from there she could walk until she found another person, some hint of civilization.

She couldn't sleep or she risked losing her grip and falling off, so Rose was left with nothing but her thoughts for company.

Scorpius was probably over his anger at her by this point, having worked out that she hadn't intentionally left him to face her parents alone. He was probably worried about her. Merlin, she wished he was with her so that she could wedge her feet under him. He was always so warm and almost never complained when she crawled into his bed, probably feeling like an icicle. She certainly felt like one now.

People thought he was a bully because of the incident with Albus, but he wasn't. Albus was an expert at provoking people and none of the teachers ever wanted to believe anything bad about the son of the great Harry Potter. Rose however, knew the whole story of that little interaction. If Albus had said that about her mum, she would have done worse than turn him into a pig.

She sighed and wiggled, trying to get herself more comfortable on the dragon's scales. The creature was even more uncomfortable than it looked, and dragons, as a general rule, didn't look comfortable at all. This one in particular seemed to be all angles and sharp edges of scales.

**Scorpius**

His eyes were scratchy and burning in the way they did when he desperately needed more rest. Scorpius had clearly not woken up by his own volition. It was probably the yelling coming from downstairs that had done it. He briefly thought about closing his eyes again and getting some more sleep, but one of the words being shouted was his name, so he reluctantly dragged himself out of bed to see what all the commotion was about.

"Scorpius," his father said as soon as he was in view. "The Aurors have some questions for you. It seems that your girlfriend didn't show up while you were sleeping." This sentence was accompanied with a hostile glare towards said Aurors, who were of course Harry Potter and Ron Weasley.

Seeing all the people gathered in the house, Scorpius kind of wished he'd bothered to put a shirt on, or at least smooth down his sleep-ruffled hair. He preferred not to be half-naked when faced with an entire room of armed, hostile war heroes.

At least Rose's mom had accompanied them. Hopefully, she'd be able to stop all hell from breaking loose. Scorpius really didn't want to die.

"What questions?" he asked, directing his attention on his father. He didn't want his father attacking Aurors any more than he wanted to be killed.

Ever since Scorpius had hexed Albus, the tentative truce between Harry and Draco had kind of fallen apart. The disagreement in the Headmistress' office probably wouldn't have gotten so out of control if Mrs. Potter hadn't been absolutely certain that her darling little Albus couldn't possibly have done any wrong. Her continued insistence that Albus was the victim and that the entire incident was Scorpius' fault had made Draco snap, which led to some sharp words being exchanged. McGonagall had to get involved and disarm the lot of them before anything could be resolved.

Mr. Potter cleared his throat. "We just want to hear about the last time you saw Rose and the details of your meeting. No one took your statement when we talked to you yesterday."

"This calls for two Aurors, Granger, and the small Weasel?" Draco asked.

Scorpius looked around and finally found Hugo over by the window. He could only assume that the ginger sprout was there to make sure things didn't get too out of hand.

"I don't think those questions are necessary," Hugo called, his face pale as he stared out the window. "Rose just flew into the yard on a dragon."

**Rose**

When the dragon woke up to find that Rose was nowhere in the cave, it gave a mournful roar and then launched itself into the sky. It had quickly found that Rose was clinging to its back and seemed overjoyed at her presence. The mid-air celebratory loop nearly unseated her, but she'd managed to cling there.

To ride on the back of a dragon was nothing like flying a broom. On the bright side, sitting on the dragon's back was a definite improvement from being clutched in its claw.

Rose slipped and accidentally nudged the side of the dragon's neck.

After her initial panic subsided a little, she was surprised to find that the dragon turned. From there, she quickly learned that she was able to steer the creature through gentle nudges. Finally she'd be able to return home.

Elated, she turned the dragon towards Malfoy Manor since it was much closer than her own home. It had the added bonus of housing Scorpius.

Landing was difficult. Rose had a hard time conveying the desire to land to the dragon, and then she struggled to hold on while they lost altitude. She very nearly crashed to the ground more than once. That would have been a lovely surprise to Scorpius, her broken and splattered remains all over his lawn.

Eventually, the dragon touched down on the grass with only some minor jostling to its passenger.

Scorpius was the first one out the door when she landed. He was adorably sleep-ruffled and missing his shirt for some reason, but Rose barely noticed. He rushed forward as she climbed off the dragon's back and wrapped her in a tight hug, using the grip to drag her away from the dragon.

"What happened to your eye?" she whispered when he finally released her. Very gently, she touched a finger to the corner of the dark bruise.

"My eye? You showed up on a dragon, I think we'd better discuss that first. Are you hurt?" His hands ran down her arms, checking for injuries.

Rose hugged him again. It hadn't escaped her notice that their audience had held back for a moment to make sure that the dragon wasn't going to eat them or burn them to a crisp. Scorpius though, had been so focused on her that he hadn't even given the dragon a second glance.

"I'm fine. She snatched me off of my broom as I was flying here," she said with a glance over her shoulder at the large, green lizard. The dragon didn't seem to want Rose's parents to come anywhere near their daughter, keeping them away from both Rose and Scorpius with growls and threatening tendrils of smoke from its nostrils. "I think she's lonely and she kind of adopted me."

Scorpius nodded like this was perfectly normal. "Try not to do it again. Your dad nearly killed me and the Aurors were just now questioning me. It's entirely possible that I would have ended up in Azkaban. Your parents have such pull with the Ministry."

Pulling away from Scorpius, Rose stomped over to her family, who promptly wrapped her into a hug. She wiggled free, put her hands on her hips and glared at them all. "Were you really here questioning Scorpius? He didn't have anything to do with my disappearance." She narrowed her eyes at her dad. "You punched my boyfriend in the face."

Ron turned red. "He deserved it, he defiled you!"

Raising her eyebrows, Rose turned to look at Scorpius.

"I had to explain why I knew the route you would have used, which involved an explanation as to why you were visiting." He shrugged apologetically. "We found your broom, it was shattered into pieces. Sorry."

She had expected as much. Still, it was upsetting to hear it in so many words. "Dad, Scorpius is nothing but a gentleman. Albus is a wanker – sorry, Uncle Harry – and the pig incident is a reflection of Scorpius' willingness to defend his mother, not of any bad character. A saint wouldn't have enough patience to handle Albus when he wants to instigate a fight."

Everyone looked like they were going to start yelling again. It was Hugo who saved the situation. "Stop!" he shouted. "Rose was just carried home on a dragon and you people are still focused on whether Scorpius is a bad match for her. He's the only one who's asked her if she's okay!"

At once, mouths shut as they all started. It seemed that none of them had realized their little omission. They had just assumed that Rose was fine because she was well enough to scold them all.

"Well?" Hermione asked her daughter, worriedly running her eyes over Rose. She looked like she was barely restraining herself from rushing over to cast diagnostic spells over her. "Are you hurt anywhere?"

"She tried to feed me a bleeding goat and I was pretty sure for a while there that I was going to die, but otherwise, I'm fine." It helped that Scorpius' arm was tight around her waist, supporting her. She wasn't sure that she'd be very steady on her feet without him holding her up.

"Maybe you should come home and rest," Hermione said. "We'll arrange for someone to come and take your new friend to a dragon preserve. She can have plenty of company from her own species."

**Scorpius**

Rose insisted on staying awake until the dragon handlers came to remove the dragon she had come to think of as hers. This of course meant that she fell asleep against Scorpius on a sofa.

Scorpius, despite being completely exhausted and finally at ease with Rose back safe, was unable to sleep. His sleeplessness had a lot to do with the hostile glares both Mr. Weasley and Mr. Potter kept shooting in his direction.

Bored with staring at the dragon out the window, Hugo came over and sat on a nearby chair. "I think Mum's softening towards you. She seems to like that you haven't moved since Rose fell asleep on you."

"I haven't moved because I don't have the energy for movement."

Hugo glanced over and caught Hermione subtly hiding a smile behind her hand. "Don't tell Mum that. She thinks you're sweet. I know better though, you're just entirely under Rose's thumb. You fear her wrath."

"Careful, sprout. Next time you upset Rose, I might not stop her from hexing you. I may even help."

"I wish you'd stop calling me sprout. I'm not short anymore, we're the same height!"

"And now the name's even more accurate. One minute you only came up to my kneecaps, and the next you'd sprouted up a few feet."

Their whispered conversation came to a halt as Hermione approached. "Hugo, can I have a moment alone with Scorpius?"

She waited until her son was gone before taking his seat. "You're the reason she's been smiling more and hasn't yelled at us as much."

Mrs. Weasley sure jumped right in to the uncomfortable topics. Scorpius looked down at Rose to make sure that she was still asleep. Her breathing hadn't changed and she hadn't moved; she appeared to be down for the count.

"We've been working on her conflict resolution skills. I'm not sure about the smile though," Scorpius answered quietly.

"I am." Hermione glanced over her shoulder at Ron, who was still glaring towards Scorpius. "He doesn't know it yet, but we approve of you." Her stare turned severe. "No more sneaking out of the house and sharing beds though."

Scorpius nodded and then waited until she'd wandered back to her husband to look down at Rose. 'Thanks for the help with that uncomfortable conversation."

"You were handling it pretty well on your own," Rose mumbled sleepily.

"You know they're going to stop you from flying your broom to visit me, right?"

She shrugged. "You can Apparate now. We'll share my bed instead of yours."

Scorpius had been expecting that. After all, Rose didn't take orders very well. In this case, he was glad for it.

**The End**


End file.
